The wide-spread use of cellular phones and increased user demand for Internet access has resulted in manufacturers producing new generations of cellular phones that have improved service and novel software applications. The latest cellular phone models and other wireless devices are equipped with Internet browser software (often called “microbrowsers”) that enables users to access media content on the Internet. Many earlier generation cellular phones do not contain microbrowsers or the cellular phone user does not want to pay additional monthly subscription fees required so that their wireless device or cellular phone has access to Internet media content. However, limited Internet access can be provided to wireless devices with and without microbrowsers using a service known as Short Message Service (“SMS”).
SMS is a subscriber service that operates in similar fashion to a pager service. Unlike paging, SMS does not require that the wireless device be active and within range when the message is sent. If a wireless device is either inactive or out of range, the SMS message generally is held for a period of time until the wireless device either returns to active status or is within range. Using SMS, a mobile device may send and receive short text messages without establishing a voice circuit connection. These short messages are typically limited to 160 alphanumeric characters. The cellular phone user sends a short “keyword” text message to a short code address (usually a 5- or 6-digit number). A server matches the keyword message and prepares an SMS message that includes the information requested and sends it back to the requesting wireless device. For example, a user may want to have the latest basketball scores sent directly to his/her cellular phone. A service may exist that sends the latest basketball scores to wireless devices. In this example, in order to sign up for the service, the user must text the word “Scores” to 555233. The server matches the keyword and sends an SMS message back to the requesting mobile phone that contains the latest basketball scores.
Person-to-person text messaging is the most commonly used application and it is what the SMS technology was originally designed for. In these kinds of text messaging applications, a mobile user types an SMS text message using the keypad of his/her mobile phone, then he/she inputs the mobile phone number of the recipient and clicks a certain option on the screen, such as “Send” or “OK”, to send the text message. When the recipient mobile phone receives the SMS text message, it will notify the user by giving out a sound or vibrating. The user can read the SMS text message some time later or immediately and can send a text message back if he/she wants. In the above example, both the sender and the recipient are using mobile devices. However, applications and software exist so that SMS messages may be sent and or received using a computer/PC.
In addition to person-to-person text messaging, SMS services can be utilized to send multi-media content, pictures, ring tones, etc. A relatively recent application of SMS services is wireless advertising, sometimes referred to as “mobile marketing.” As wireless devices have become increasingly prevalent, marketers have discovered that SMS services provide the opportunity to reach an enormous audience via SMS messaging. In particular, mobile marketers have used SMS services to deliver SMS ads, service reminders, “mobile coupons” and special announcements. In addition, using two-way SMS messaging, mobile marketers have used SMS services to conduct contests, surveys, trivia games, and e-commerce transactions with recipients.
Sending SMS content from one mobile phone to another mobile phone is only one of the ways SMS is utilized. There are also web-based mobile SMS-services, commonly known as “Web-2-SMS”. A user logs on to a web site (such as Group2call.com, GizmoSMS.com, ClearSMS.com, Swaggle.com, etc) and sends a text message to a recipient. The web interface essentially consists of a database and a connection to an SMS Gateway. The SMS Gateway can convert complicated SMS protocols such as SMPP and CIMD into more common protocols such as HTTP/HTTPS. The text message is then delivered to an SMS Center (SMSC) which delivers the message to the recipient's mobile phone.
One of the limitations of current SMS messaging using mobile or cellular phones is that it is difficult for a recipient of SMS message content such as advertisements, text messages, pictures, etc. to share the content on social media sites, such as Facebook® and Twitter®.